OPINION: Climate policy is more than cutting carbon emissions

Are Americans ready to talk seriously about climate change now?

Climate Change inspired protest sign | Courtesy | Unsplash
Climate Change inspired protest sign | Courtesy | Unsplash

While we’ve been busy dealing with the stress of surviving a global pandemic, climate change has been simmering on in the background. 

This winter of ice storms and power loss following an autumn of deadly wildfires and a summer of hurricanes is a clear reminder that one crisis doesn’t end just because another begins. The world is starting to feel a little too much like a soap opera and there’s way too much drama in this season. Could we please just fire the writers responsible for this climate change plotline?  

Most Americans are stuck watching the same horror show together without the privileged option of tuning out and flying to Cancún. This past year has given us so many startling examples of weather events we can expect to see more often under our changing climate. 

It’s not looking good. The people are suffering and there is nowhere to point fingers except back at our own government. 

For decades, our policymakers have put climate issues squarely in the “not in my backyard” category, bringing them out only when it suits their immediate agenda. We’ve soldiered on with our unsustainable carbon emissions and pushed past a point of no return. Today, reducing our CO2 outputs is only part of the problem we need to address. It’s probably the easy part. 

Consequently, we are tasked with the social side of climate change: caring for climate refugees, building new infrastructure that can withstand more frequent natural disasters, providing for the safety of our coastal communities and safeguarding backup water and energy stores so that no more Texans are left to freeze to death while racking up thousands of dollars a day on their electric bills. 

Of course, carbon neutrality is an important step in protecting our human populations. Americans are the world’s largest carbon emitters per capita, and other countries have long suffered from our refusal to take climate action. The Marshall Islands are slipping under rising seas and maybe completely uninhabitable by 2050. Glaciers are melting from Ecuador to Nepal, threatening future freshwater supplies. The Caribbean is devastated on an annual basis by increasingly frequent and intense hurricanes. We owe it to ourselves and to our global community to reduce our carbon footprint and stop actively exacerbating an already overwhelming climate situation.  

If we didn’t believe it before, Americans must understand now that climate change is our problem. The hurricanes have swept away any sand for us to stick our heads in and we have nothing left to do but face the icy cold truth. 

These natural disasters are only going to get worse and happen more often, so we need to prepare to care for our most vulnerable populations. It doesn’t matter if we call it a Green New Deal or a Climate Plan — the name will never matter if we can get the social side of our climate crisis the attention and consideration it deserves. 

We need to make plans to protect our communities from extreme weather events and to prevent a refugee crisis. We need representatives who understand science, who acknowledge the facts regardless of their personal agendas. We the people need to take charge of this climate narrative and weave some hope for our future into the storyline. 

Beth Hoots can be reached at [email protected] 

About the Author

Beth Hoots Hi I'm Elizabeth! I started out writing Arts and Culture at the Arg when I was a first-year student, and then came back this year as a senior to write about climate change and the environment for Opinion. I am a fourth-year student, and I'll graduate this spring with degrees in Spanish and Ecology & Conservation Biology!

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